


Pikes Peak

by imogenbynight



Series: Odds and Ends [8]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Zombies, and an undercurrent of msr because who are we kidding, mulder making tasteless jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 14:26:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3491723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imogenbynight/pseuds/imogenbynight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Scully does not believe in zombies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pikes Peak

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the tumblr prompt; “Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while.”

The shutters flick open for barely a second before Mulder closes them again, and looks back over his shoulder with a grimace.

“I take it they haven’t left?” Scully asks, looking up at him from her place on the floor across the room.

He shakes his head, turning fully to sink down against the wall with one elbow on his knee as he reaches into his jacket pocket and fishes out a crinkling plastic pack of sunflower seeds.

“Looks like we’ll be stuck here a while.”

With a frown, Scully looks at her cell phone for the fifth time in as many minutes, and curses the lack of signal. At least Skinner knows where they were headed. He’ll notice their absence soon enough. Hopefully soon enough.

She doesn’t want to call the cluster of people crowded outside this Pikes Peak cabin zombies—but for all intents and purposes, that’s what they’re acting like. Scully is of the opinion that the occupants of the camp were more likely exposed to some kind of hallucinogen. Perhaps a fungus got into the water supply.

Among them is the ranger who made the initial call. When they’d met him earlier today he’d been good-humored, if a little nervous, but now he’s practically rabid. At some point between leading them up the mountain and pointing them toward the blood spatter left when one of the campers had suddenly bitten into her own hand, he’d been exposed to the cause himself.

They’d seen him turn from Ranger Martin Lowell into a snarling, gnashing madman within seconds.

Luckily they’d been able to get away unscathed, but since locking themselves in this cabin the other campers have all returned. With fourteen sick civilians outside, blocking their only way off this mountain, they have little choice but to hope that help arrives soon—and that said help will be able to neutralize the people outside without killing them.

In the meantime, all they can do is wait.

Across the room, with his head tilted back on the brick, Mulder is looking down at his last two sunflower seeds with a miserable expression on his face. He glances up to meet Scully’s eye.

“Don’t suppose you packed a snack?”

Scully just arches a brow in response, and Mulder clicks his tongue before tossing the last two seeds into his mouth. He crunches them loudly before he tosses the packet onto the floor at his side, and loosens his tie.

“You think it’s blood-borne?” he says after a few minutes, and she shakes her head.

“Ranger Lowell said he didn’t come into contact with the blood,” she says. “Unless he was lying, it’s not likely.”

Mulder hums in thought, though whether he’s agreeing or not is anyone’s guess. Most likely, she thinks, he’s trying to find a way to turn this into some kind of supernatural occurrence.

When he speaks again, though, it’s nothing to do with the case at hand.

“I’m starving,” he says, and pats his stomach.

“Hmm,” she agrees, “it’s nearly eight.”

For a long moment, he looks at her with his chin tilted up, something sly in his expression, and she knows that whatever he’s planning to say is going to make her wish she was trapped with anyone else on the planet.

“How do you feel about longpig?”

Scully purses her lips and tries not to smile.


End file.
